Quick Release Buckle

ABSTRACT

Quick Release Buckle (QRB) is an automated seatbelt system. QRB utilizes a power source and control unit software incorporated into pre-existing components within the vehicle&#39;s transmission or by micro-switch. QRB automatically disengages the seatbelt upon placing the vehicle in “park”, regardless of the ignition setting for law enforcement/military vehicles. While in “park”, an electrical signal energizes a solenoid releasing the buckle. The control unit contains proprietary software that records every engage/disengage of the seatbelt. Electronic records can be downloaded at any time, using an integrated micro-scan disk (SD) module/card. During a collision, the system ceases to record activity, showing electronic proof the seatbelt was engaged/disengaged. Civilian application includes accident investigations, insurance inquiries, and private company regulation compliance. Civilian QRB differs slightly as the transmission must be placed in “park” and the ignition must be in “off” for system operation.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION Law Enforcement Field

The Quick Release Buckle (QRB) is designed to automatically disengagefrom a standard vehicle seatbelt which is controlled by proprietarysoftware and operated through the use of the vehicle's automatictransmission commonly found in most law enforcement and civilianvehicles.

Prior Art

All vehicles manufactured by United States standards, toinclude—civilian, law enforcement, and military are standardly equippedwith an analog seat belt. A standard seat belt consists of at least twoparts; a latching mechanism and a latching tongue. These parts areattached to a nylon belt which is then secured to the frame of anyvehicle. When worn properly, a person is secured to the seat of thevehicle via the seat belt, seat, and vehicle frame.

Law enforcement and other emergency vehicles are often involved invehicle pursuits, collisions, and similar situations which require thefirst responder to exit their vehicle in an expeditious manner. In manycases, the seat belt is viewed as a hindrance due to the cumbersomenature of the device. In addition, the critical time it takes tomanually disengage the buckle while remaining focused on the immediatetask at hand can be determinantal Although most if not all policedepartments across the United States require their officers to utilizethe seat belt, many choose not to for the aforementioned reasons. Suchdecisions create a significant risk to the officer as well as the publicin which they serve. An officer is no good to the public if he/she doesnot arrive safely.

When an officer or first responder chooses not to utilize the seat belt,he/she is usually subjected to administrative disciplinary action.Failing to abide by legal and departmental policies opens the door forliability should a collision occur.

A law enforcement officer is required to wear a duty belt around thewaist which consists of numerous items such as; a firearm, radio,batons, handcuffs, extra ammunition, tasers, pepper spray, and audiorecorders. Proper utilization of a seat belt can be significantlyhindered by this cumbersome equipment. Officers routinely feel theirmovement is restricted while in the driver seat of a police vehicle.This poses a significant risk during high stress scenarios where thehuman body's naturally experiences the loss of fine motor skills and/ortunnel vision.

Previous prototypical devices similar to QRB, consist of mechanisms thatare manually controlled and require the vehicle ignition to be in the“off” position and the key removed from the ignition. Such a sequence isnot practical in today's police and first responder environment. Othershave been designed to disengage in the event of a collision which posesa risk to the occupant as in many cases the occupant is safer remainingrestrained until help arrives.

There is a clear need for a seat belt system such as QRB. Understandinghow the human body reacts under stress is a critical component to theQRB and will allow the operator to simply place the transmission intothe “park” position while the buckle operates as it was designed. In theevent the buckle does not perform as intended, the officer will still beable to disengage manually Furthermore, QRB is equipped with amicro-scan disk module along with the card (memory capacity is dependenton user preference). QRB recommends at least an eight-gigabyte card forthis application which will be able to provide a detailed report of whenand for how long the seatbelt was engaged/disengaged. This will providedefinitive proof that the officer (driver) is or is not adhering toestablished departmental policies and state laws. The QRB willundoubtably increase the efficiency and effectiveness of those whoprotect us while also holding them to a new standard of accountability.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Civilian

QRB has multiple civilian applications. During all vehicle collisioninvestigations conducted by the police the use of the seat belt is acrucial factor. Each state has its own way of tracking such statistics.However, most (if not all) do in some fashion. As the aforementionedstated (009); the QRB system will produce irrefutable proof that arestraint was in use at the time if the collision, thus providingconcrete data for state statistical purposes.

The number of vehicles on the roadway in the United States is positivelycorrelated to the number of vehicle collisions reported each year.Insurance fraud is common, and many policies become void in the eventthe driver or occupants are not properly restrained. By failing toutilize the seat belt, more injuries are likely to occur, thus creatinghigher insurance premiums.

Private corporations and federal organizations such as Federal Express(FedEx), United Parcel Service (UPS), United States Postal Service(USPS) have policies requiring the use of seat belts. The QRB isdesigned to hold such employees accountable in an effort to mitigateliability.

In addition to the local law enforcement and first responder communitiesthe need for a the QRB system exists in private and other governmentagencies.

The QRB is a seatbelt system designed to release automatically when avehicle transmission is placed into the “park” position. The lawenforcement design does not require the vehicle ignition to be in theoff position, nor does the key need to be removed from the ignition. Incontrast—the civilian design requires the transmission to place in“park” and the ignition must be in the “off” position.

The QRB design requires a physical mechanism to release the seat beltbuckle. Engineering of this mechanism was not necessary due to itscompatibility with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts. This costsaving aspect to both the customer and potential investors of the QRBmakes the design more economically be eliminating the need to researchand develop original parts. This also allows for expedited productionand ease of implementation since the design has a working prototype toshow proof of concept.

The QRB is designed to fit in any pre-manufactured buckle-housing unit.Again, for the ease of implementation to a future buyer, it wasimportant to ensure that any additional parts required in the operationof the QRB fit into any automaker's existing seat belt restraint design.

DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DESIGN/DRAWINGS AND SKEMATICS

For a clear and better understanding of the QRB; reference anddescription with accompanying

Circuit Design—FIG. 1 contains the circuit design of the QRB system. ThePhysical Circuit—FIG. 2 depicts the solenoid controlling the buckle thatis controlled by a five-volt relay receiving control signals from anArduino (microcontroller unit) MCU. The relay was selected to switchpower on or off to the buckle depending on the conditions of thevehicle. The positive output of the 12-volt power supply was connectedto the common output pin of the relay and the input voltage (Vin) pin ofthe Arduino MCU. The negative output of the 12-volt power supply wasconnected to negative wire of the actuator and the ground (GND) pin ofthe Arduino MCU. The positive wire of the actuator was connected to thenormally open output pin of the relay.

The five-volt relay's input pins were the input voltage pin (VCC),signal input (IN), and ground (GND). The VCC pin was connected to thefive-volt output pin of the Arduino MCU. The IN pin was connected to adigital pin of the Arduino MCU to receive signals. The GND pin of therelay was connected to the ground of the Arduino MCU. Three switcheswere connected to digital pins of the Arduino MCU. The three switcheswere tied together at one end to ground and used the Arduino MCU'sonboard pullup resistances. This method was used to eliminate the needfor connected to a 32-kilobyte memory chip. The memory chip wasconnected to the five-volt and GND pins of the Arduino MCU physicalresistors and reduce number of wires.

Logic Code—FIG. 3 represents the logic flowchart of how the QRBoperates. The first decision is whether or not the car is a lawenforcement or civilian vehicle. If the car is a law enforcementvehicle, the MCU checks if the car is in “park”. If the car is in park,then the buckle is released. If the car is a civilian vehicle, the MCUchecks if the car is in “park” or not. If the car is in park, the MCUchecks if the ignition is on or not. If the ignition is off, then thebuckle is released. QRB contains a data logging system that records avalue of 255 to the next memory address whenever a pulse is recorded.This simulates recording the belt unbuckling using the vehicle'sreal-time clock. The current design also records a value of 127 to thenext memory address once the buckle resets to simulate recording thetime that the buckled was re-engaged. When the memory is full, thevalues are overwritten starting at the initial location. The code alsoallows for a fourth switch to be added that simulates an accident. If anaccident occurs, the event is logged, and the memory is software-lockedto prevent tampering. Appendix A contains the commented code that theMCU uses to operate the QRB.

Buckle Release Design—FIG. 4 is the method which the process ofreleasing the QRB with the Arduino MCU. Once the decision is made by theArduino MCU to release the belt buckle, a 12-volt solenoid is pulseactivated wherein a cable attached between the solenoid and buckleslider is configured to be pulled as the solenoid compresseselectromagnetically. The cable will then move the buckle slider from thelocked to the unlocked position releasing the buckle tongue. Once theaction is initiated, the solenoid will decompress as the 12-volt pulseis over returning the buckle slider back to the original position.

Most automakers outsource the design and construction of personal safetyrestraint systems to third party vendors; therefore, the design wascreated using a seat belt assembly from a Ford Taurus which was easilysourced. The intent of the QRB is to be easily implemented in anyvehicle that is used by LEOs, the choice of which seat belt assembly waschosen was not a crucial element.

An important element in the design is selecting a mechanism to be ableto pull the seat belt release slide with enough force to release theseat belt buckle. The average release button for a seat belt needs to bedepressed one-half inch and requires 3 lbf (pounds of force) to releasethe buckle. An important aspect that was considered when looking atoptions was for the mechanism to use enough force to operate the seatbelt assembly but not so forceful as to cause damage to the bucklerelease mechanism or the QRB. Since it was important to find easilysources parts, a 12-volt solenoid was chosen. The solenoid has aone-inch stroke and pulls with at least five (5) pounds of force whichis strong enough to effectively accomplish releasing the buckle.

To connect to buckle release slide to the actuator there was a couple offactors to consider. One factor is the cable has the flexibility to becapable of being incorporated into the design of the buckle release andexisting wiring. The second factor is the cable needing to be strong tohandle the force releasing the buckle and rigid enough to allow thesolenoid actuator to pull the cable allowing the buckle slide release. Abrake cable was chosen for both strength and dexterity since its designis meant to be robust enough to repeatedly pull the release slidewithout breaking yet be flexible enough to follow the sensor wiring andcar frame cable restraints. FIG. 5 represents a Computer Aided Design(CAD) drawing of the buckle.

REFERENCES CITED

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1. The QRB system is an automatic seatbelt which can be disengaged whenthe transmission of a vehicle is placed in the “park” position (theignition may remain in the “on” position for the system to work.) In thecivilian variant the vehicle must be in the “park” position with theignition in the “off” position. a. The Micro Control Unit (MCU) isconnected to the QRB system and therefore controls and operates theentire system. b. The MCU shall be connected to vehicle electricalsystem, and the transmission. Furthermore, the seatbelts shall containmanual and electronic/electromagnetic releasing capability.
 2. The QRBsystem is designed for the front seats, however, can be adapted to therear seats by programming the MCU to operate multiple seatbelts withinthe given vehicle. In addition, such programing shall have the abilityto be turned on and off by the operator.
 3. QRB is specifically designedfor simplistic implication to any manufactured vehicle. The system shallbe powered by existing electrical systems and shall not interfere withstandard operation of such systems.
 4. While installed in a lawenforcement vehicle, the QRB system shall disengage the seat belt whenthe officer places the patrol vehicle transmission into the “park”position while having the option to leave the ignition in the “on”position if desired.
 5. While installed in a civilian vehicle, the QRBsystem shall disengage the seat belt when the operator places thevehicle transmission in the “park” position and disengages the ignitionto the “off” position.
 6. The QRB system is designed to be connected tothe MCU and shall be connected to the vehicle transmission allowing theseatbelt to disengage when an electronic signal is sent through the MCUonce the transmission is in park, therefore releasing the seatbeltmechanism which has the ability to record each operation and can bedownloaded when necessary.
 7. The QRB shall have an “override button”located near the driver door instrument cluster to allow firstresponders to disengage the QRB in the event of an accident or otheremergency situation.
 8. The QRB system's simplistic design shall includeall of the aforementioned features while maintaining the ability tooperate the seatbelt manually as originally designed.